Ireland abandons plan for close pass law and sets to work on ‘dangerous overtaking of cyclists’ offence instead

mikepridmorewood wrote:

It might be possible to measure a distance to a passing vehicle but the retort will be that the cyclist was more than 0.75m from the kerb/edge of the usable road surface which is much more difficult to measure. 

I actually have concerns about the 0.75m/1.5m distances anyway as they seem too close for me if it's based on where the wheels are. If you ride with the tyres 0.75m from the kerb on a mountain bike with 650mm bars then you are potentially dangerously close to a pedestrian on the edge of the pavement at 0.425m

On the other side you could have a truck 1.175m away from your bar ends and that's not enough at any speed, never mind 50mph as you'll get blown towards the kerb by the bow wave and then sucked back in by the depression down the sides. Have a look at a curtainsider truck on the motorway to see what I mean.

And don't get me started on vehicles crossing solid white lines to pass cyclists......... 

I don't see where the rider's position comes into this. As I understand it, the 0.75m marked on the 'Close Pass mat' is designed to be indicative of a normal cyclist in secondary position. The idea is to make it clear to drivers that cyclists aren't required - or expected - to cycle in the gutter. There's no suggestion from either Cycling UK (who issued the Close Pass Mats) nor the proposed law in Ireland that this should be considered the maximum distance a cyclist should be from the kerb. It's still perfectly legitimate to ride further out, including taking primary position, and no matter where the cyclist is, an overtaking vehicle should still leave sufficient room.

That said, I do see your point that in some circumstances those 'recommended' distances don't seem far enough. In this regard, the more generic offences of 'dangerous' overtaking might make more sense - although I still think you would find it difficult to secure a conviction if the lorry was over a meter away.

Dicklexic wrote:

I'm actually inclined to agree with this decision sadly. By stipulating a specific minimum distance you can easily see that without an accurate and reliable/repeatable method for measuring the passing distance, drivers will simply argue that "in their opinion" they were more than 1.5m away. You can imagine it would be very hard to prove a driver was 1.45m instead of his claimed 1.55m for example, thus it would be way too easy for it to fail, and then the driver would walk away scot-free. By being less specific you are hopefully making a successful prosecution more likely, although we would still be relying on the authorities to agree on what is deemed an unsafe pass! 

 

Have the countries that HAVE introduced such laws seen a decent number of successful prosecutions? Or have they often been successfully challenged? Would be interesting to see data on this...

 

Of course the argument that the existing laws should be more robustly policed is totally valid. We've all seen how many shocking close passes are shown on this website (and others) yet the drivers so often never face any sort of sanctions whatsoever.

I don't agree. Having a fixed distance makes it less about the judgement of the driver and it's not that tricky to infer passing distances from a specific camera. Personally, I don't tend to get scared by overtakes when they're more than 1m distance (it's dependant on their speed though), so I wouldn't bother submitting footage if they're more than 1m.

alansmurphy wrote:

Dangerous - if you don't die it's not dangerous, if you do then there's no evidence. Genius!

 

Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle. "That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed. "It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.

burtthebike wrote:

Strange.  A law that seems to work everywhere else somehow won't work in Ireland.  Do I detect the hand of the driving lobby?

If a specified distance isn't going to work, neither is a vaguely phrased law about overtaking a cyclist dangerously, and as pointed out by Dr Mike McKillen, a law already exists but is not enforced, so what exactly is the point of a new one which has the word "cyclist" in it.

Does it really work?

IMO no it doesn't, the offence of careless or dangerous driving already exists, IF police were to put as much time into spotting and prosecuting motorists for these long existing offences -or better yet common assault or assault causing actual bodily harm/greivous bodily harm, manslaughter, then we would have the same if not more motorists pulled up.

It ois far easier to say that a person felt fear of harm and that an action was careless/dangerous than trying to use a measure that is virtually impossible to prove.

I've been against the 1.5m rule because it's massively flawed, focusing on enforement of existing laws is hugely better all round IMHO.

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

Does it really work?

IMO no it doesn't, the offence of careless or dangerous driving already exists, IF police were to put as much time into spotting and prosecuting motorists for these long existing offences -or better yet common assault or assault causing actual bodily harm/greivous bodily harm, manslaughter, then we would have the same if not more motorists pulled up.

It ois far easier to say that a person felt fear of harm and that an action was careless/dangerous than trying to use a measure that is virtually impossible to prove.

I've been against the 1.5m rule because it's massively flawed, focusing on enforement of existing laws is hugely better all round IMHO.

Interesting, but such a law, where the mere fact that the victim felt fear of harm is proof of crime, is unlikely to be acted on by the police, witness the fact that such a law already exists but is never, or almost never, enforced.  Given the overworked, uninterested police, I think it is extremely unlikely that they would take reports of cyclists feeling threatened seriously, and even less likely that it would end up in court, and even less likely that the court would convict.

With a specified distance, the crime can be proved beyond doubt, and yes, there is a problem with measuring that distance, but I foresee cheap, light electronic measuring devices for cyclists which will be extremely popular.